SOLOMON isn't in it with Judge BACON. The point was whether Mrs.
MANLEY had made Miss DOROTHY DENE's dresses to fit or not. "To fit or
not to fit, that was the question." The Judge gave his decision after
a fair trial of the two costumes--this might be remembered on both
sides as "the trying-on case,"--that, according to the evidence of
unimpeachable witnesses represented by the Judge's own common-sense
and artistic eye for effect, two of the dresses and a cloak didn't
fit, and that so far, the Defendant, Miss DOROTHY, must consider
herself, in a dress-making sense, "non-suited." Mrs. MANLEY had, of
course, undertaken to provide fits for her customers, and for having
partially failed, her customers determined to return the compliment,
by "giving _her_ fits" if possible. So the parties came before
Judge BACON, and appealed to His Honour. And the learned Judge
mindful of ancestral Baconian wisdom, "_Cast a severe eye upon the
example_"--that is, he examined the dresses most critically,--"_but
a merciful eye upon the person_,"--for the fair Plaintiff and fair
Defendant His Honour showed himself a most fair Judge, unwilling, as
BACON, "to give beans" to either party, and so dismissing them with
his beany-diction. But, _pauca verba_,--and may we always have nothing
but praise to bestow on _Bacon's Essays_.
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